


gentle

by lysimachia



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Angst, Drabble, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Torture, Past Violence, Prompt Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-28
Updated: 2020-09-28
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:40:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26703838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lysimachia/pseuds/lysimachia
Summary: Belle had once told him that there were no scourges or flaying during her abduction to protect him. The first night they make love, he discovers that's far from the truth.
Relationships: Belle/Rumplestiltskin | Mr. Gold
Kudos: 26





	gentle

**Author's Note:**

> Reposting some VERY old fic from Tumblr (previously daylilium and lysimachia on Tumblr)

He couldn’t breathe. His chest heaved rapidly, pain constricting his lungs and his heart and burning through his chest, but his throat was knotted so tight not a breath of air could escape. There was a pounding in his head and a screaming in his ears, and he could only keep his fists clenched at his sides, his short nails digging into his palms hard enough to draw blood.

Belle turned around and cupped his face in her hands. Her eyes swam with tears, and behind them was an aching sorrow, a pain and an absolution all in one. He could see her sweetness and her joy and her laughter shattered, cut and disdained and left in shards on a filthy dungeon floor only for her to gather them up and patiently piece them back together. He could see the clarity of her heart blur and tar and be swept clean by her small, careful hands, her trusting soul crumble and weep before she gathers it up in her arms and soothes it.

He could see his sweet love beaten and broken and folding in on herself. He could see her clutching her head and tearing at her skin, wishing the pain away and losing another piece of herself every day it remained.

And he could see her crawling away, dragging the body that they’d made foreign to her into a safe and quiet corner, closing those blue eyes and taking deep breaths, like she did when she missed her father and her home almost too much to bear. He saw her mopping up the tears and the blood and the pain and finding her smile again, finding that brave girl who had love enough for a monster and the world. He could see her free, squinting at the sun for long moments before recognising it, her beaming smile greeting that other star like an old friend, could see her trembling feet making her way back to her monster and her freedom and her castle and her adventure far far away from four blank walls and a blank past and a blank story. _I did want to see the world._

He could see his Belle standing before him, bare and shining, every inch of her pale skin – too pale, still more pale than she was and ever should be – beckoning him and screaming for him to retreat all at once. He stepped towards her, closer than they’d ever been, and raised one trembling hand to whisper his fingertips along the raised scar at her collarbone.

A tear fell from her eyes, and he quickly kissed it away.

He kissed every inch of every one of her scars that night, listening for her murmured encouragements and her sighs and her gasps. When she turned over he thought he’d see tears still in her eyes, but she’s smiling and pulling him down for a kiss, and as he covers her body with his own she gasps and moans and sighs and smiles and doesn’t cry.

He wishes he could heal her with his lips, but he knows he never could. She healed herself, his Belle, the brave Marchlands girl who saved a kingdom and a beast and dreamed only of open skies. The storyteller girl who shared her heart with a spinner and a devil.

She healed herself, and then she healed him.


End file.
